Mentor Conclave 2017

Mentor Conclave 2017

THEME: Questioning & Co-creating Education

DATE: 1 & 2 December 2017

VENUE: J.N. Tata Auditorium, Bangalore

In its 5th edition, Mentor Conclave 2017 – Questioning & Co-creating Education provided an opportunity for educators to bridge the learning divide, promote research esteem and the evolution of pedagogy.

Leaders from different walks-of-life graced the conclave. The achievers helped participants:

Transform the way they think

Change the parameters of growth and operations of their institution

Bridge the gap between teachers and students

Address complex issues with collaboration

Make school a safe place

Understand the importance of branding and creating brand identity for schools

PRESENTATION RELEASED: Released School Safety Phase-1 research papers conducted by LXL Ideas’ Research division

Curators

Syed Sultan Ahmed

A First Generation Entrepreneur, Syed Sultan Ahmed is the founder of LXL Ideas (formerly EduMedia) an organisation that impacts learning through its verticals – Mentor Magazine, School Cinema and Krayon Events. He is a recipient of six prestigious President of India’s National Film Awards as a producer. Sultan is a certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner and Master Trainer from Dale Carnegie and holds a Masters degree in Entrepreneurship from MIT-Boston. An amazing speaker, respected motivational trainer, admired event manager, and a prolific educational blogger, Sultan’s many interests include riding his Harley Davidson on long trips.

KALPA Kartik

Kalpa Karthik, Director, LXL Ideas, Editor-in-Chief, Mentor magazine and a passionate educator, heads the content, strategy and research wing of LXL Ideas. With passion, a constant yearning for success and ten years of expertise in the field of education, she drives the company light years ahead. A clear-headed perfectionist, she wants to touch the lives of millions of children by impacting education in India and contributing to something larger than life.

SESSION 1: EXPRESSIONS

THEME: Managing communications effectively is a key leadership skill. Many problems, in and out of schools, can be directly traced to whether information can be directly traced to whether information was communicated, how it was communicated, and who communicated it.

TAKEAWAYS:

Explored the various aspects related to the power of communication for a principal

How it can help in improving the efficiency of school governance

Stories of distinguished principals

SESSION 2: SAFE SCHOOL

THEME: Whether you see it as childcare, or a place to learn, or about meeting friends the entire premise of schools revolves around safety. We send our children to school to learn all this because we know they will be safe there.

TAKEAWAYS:

What makes schools safe?

What measures can and should schools take?

Making schools, a safe haven

SESSION 3: CORPORATE LESSION

THEME: Policies are part and parcel of almost all the countries across the globe. India is one of the countries which has been working on a number of education policies since long. A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. In short, it is a statement of intent, and is implemented as a procedure or protocol.

TAKEAWAYS:

General policies that enable school effectiveness

Learn the best industry HR and media relations practises useful for schools

Prepare yourself for the legal challenges

SESSION 4: LESSONS OF LIFE

THEME: Lessons of Life are hard to categorise into one single subject area. Some schools teach value education, life-skills. No matter which way you teach or to which age group, it is still an important and interesting topic of study.

SESSION 5: DECODING KIDS

THEME: Every kid is unique and yet similar to their own age-group in some way. Research in the domain of psychology suggests that childhood is a very influential time in a person’s life. Events that happen when we’re young – even small, seemingly insignificant ones – can have a direct impact on how we feel and behave as adults. Research has proven, that the kids’ brains are twice as active as the adults. And, based on their stage of cognitive development, they have different skills in forming relationships and in ways they understand the world. They build strong preferences but are usually transient. They speak their mind, Generation Z which is commonly defined as “people born between the mid 1990s and 2010.” They are also known as ‘Digital Natives’ Lets get to know them better!

TAKEAWAYS:

Unravel the puzzle that kids are

Research insights on kids

Engage with kids and unlock the potential of the school demographic

SESSION 6: CHARTER NEW HEIGHTS

THEME: Today, there is a huge public demand for higher performing, academically excellent schools. Leading many universities and colleges to now operate in a business like market where students are “customers” and other schools are competition. To successfully compete, a school must develop and market its own brand that differentiates it from the thousands of other schools vying for students and funding. Although most have marketing budgets, schools are still climbing the learning curve when relating to effective branding.

TAKEAWAYS:

Importance of branding and brand identity for school and educational institutes

Marketing design and the school story

Digital marketing for schools

SESSION 7: MAKERS MINDSET

THEME: By employing this process and Taking Design Thinking to Schools participants collaborate to develop coursework that students will find engrossing and “hands-on.”, the program at combines both design thinking for teachers who must create alternative curriculum and students who must complete the design thinking-based projects.

TAKEAWAYS:

Transform the way you think with Design Thinking

Ideate and solve problems creatively

Brainstorm processes, success stories and opinions on various design models

SESSION 8: COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP

THEME: The idea that teachers, principals, and other stakeholders work together, rather than in isolation, to bring about positive changes for student learning.

TAKEAWAYS:

Explore collaborative leadership

How to address complex issues through collaborative leadership?

Collaborative leadership for schools

Speakers

Mr. Roshan Abbas

Mr. Abbas has spent two decades gathering domain expertise in radio, television, theatre, events and BTL and has recently entered Bollywood with his directorial debut under the banner of Shahrukh Khan’s Red Chillies Production. He is a reputed television and radio anchor having won 7 National Awards. Roshan entered the Event Management and Communication

arena driven by the desire to provide an all-encompassing service to clients and thus, Encompass Events was born. Roshan is also currently a mentor partner at Glitch. Roshan is now a media entrepreneur and an angel investor in the media and technology space. He is passionate about and regularly conducts workshops on radio, mass communication and events.

Mr. Syed Sultan Ahmed

First Generation Entrepreneur | MD- LXL Ideas

Mr. Sultan founded LXL Ideas (formerly EduMedia) an organisation that impacts learning for students, parents and educators by making lessons for life more than two decades back. With its verticals- Mentor, School Cinema, Krayon, Teach and Expressions, LXL Ideas has been spreading lessons of life. A passionate educator, Mr. Sultan is a recipient of 6 prestigious

President of India’s National Film Awards as producer. Mr. Sultan, who is also a certified NLP practitioner is also an advisor to CIET-NCERT and member of FICCI School Education Committee. He has published several research papers in international journals on Psychosocial Development of Children and Media Pedagogy.

Mr. Gourav Jaiswal

Mr. Jaiswal graduated as an Electronics and Communications Engineer and was initially working as Network Engineer. He witnessed the lack of quality education in rural areas and also observed an increasing misconception in society about expensive education being good education. Being from a rural background himself he decided to work towards this problem and founded Agrini. Gourav has also been selected as “Young Connectors Of Future

2017” by Swedish Institute and have received multiple national/international fellowships like Learning and Leadership Journey, Wipro Education Seeding Fellowship, Dasra Social Impact program etc. Apart from being an entrepreneur, Gourav is also a speaker on education issues. Organisations that have hosted him include TISS, Josh Talks, Rotary Club, Jagriti Yatra, MAD Asia Hong Kong etc. With passion, a constant yearning for success and more than a decade of expertise in the field of education, she drives the company light years ahead. A clear-headed perfectionist, she wants to touch the lives of millions of children by impacting education in India and contributing to something larger than life.

Ms. Shanti Krishnamurthy

Principal, Chinmaya Residential School, Coimbatore

Ms. Krishnamurthy, Principal- Chinmaya International Residential School, Coimbatore is also the Director of the Chinmaya Vision Program, Central Chinmaya Mission Trust Educational Cell, which governs all the 93 schools across the country. The credit of establishing the Mahindra World School from scratch goes to her. While in Jamshedpur, she was associated with the District Education office and framed the curriculum for the Anganvadi schools. She is also the ambassador for British Council International School Award Program since 2012. She is a panel member for the assessment of dossier for the British Council ISA Program. She received the “CBSE Mentor Principal Award” from the then HR minister Ms. Smriti Irani in 2014. She also received Chinmaya Gaurav Award in 2016 and the “Most Influential Principal” award from the White Swan group in 2016.

Ms. Kalpa Kartik

Editor-in-Chief, Mentor Magazine and Director- LXL Ideas

Ms. Karthik, who has the answer for every question heads the Content, Strategy and Research wing of LXL Ideas. Director- LXL Ideas and Editor-in- Chief- Mentor Magazine, Ms. Kartik, a passionate educator has a Masters Degree in Mass Communication. She has spent past 12 years in being actively involved in growing the business ideas at LXL in various capacity. As the Editor-in-Chief of Mentor Magazine, which is India’s leading monthly education publication, Ms. Kartik has always strived for lifelong learning and professional development. Certificate course from IIMA on strategic Leadership for schools and part time lecturer at Media Colleges keeps her in touch with ground reality of teaching and equips her with skills to consult individually with schools for improvement. Understanding the needs of the business verticals she is able to oversee content ideation, strategy and implementation at LXL Ideas. She believes that an active involvement and contribution to Strategic Goals of the company to drive sales, engagement, retention, leads and positive customer base. Developing a Research Business Vertical that supports multiple platforms and formats of LXL Business and is growing as an independent business line. Ms. Kartik’s journey at work has been a re-starter story of a woman of today’s time managing work and family life. At LXL Ideas, the journey has been one of continuous growth being allowed a great level of flexibility and freedom simultaneously. Being a mother of two kids, she believes in making a difference to the lives of many other children, through innovative ideas and experiences. A perfectionist, she describes herself as highly organised, and a complete team player, sensible and rational in making decisions. Reasonably cautious and generally thinks before acting.

Mr. N Shekar

HR and Corporate Consultant

Shekar has more than 35 years of experience as HR Entrepreneurship as well in Corporate Management. He has also developed an organisational development framework called “CARES” which has been used in part or full by leading Corporate Organisations. He was the Chairman of Carnegie Consulting Private Limited- a talent management consulting firm engaged in training, research and executive search services. He has also helped SME’s like Stump Scheule & Somappa Deshpande Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, IDS, etc., in establishing Culture of Accountability and Recognition and Performance improvement and I have also mentored their Senior Management Professionals. He has also worked as Chief People Officer at Tejas Networks- one of the few R&D Centre set up by a very famous Indian Technologist named Dr Gururaj Deshpande, who also happens to be the Core Chairman of Mr. Obama’s Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He was the mind behind the Talent Management function of the company- called ‘Team Tejas Cares’ and helped the organisation to establish Business Strategy as well as Recruitment of top talent from US and Multinational Organizations in India. He also setup a proactive talent management policies & systems and talent development systems. He was also the part o International Hospital of Bahrain as Senior Executive Director, UB Group as VP HR (Liquor Division), Computer Point India Limited as CEO, Wipro, Dunlop India Limited, CMC and ITC among others.

Mr. Rahul Matthan

Partner, Trilegal

Mr. Matthan is a partner with Trilegal and heads its TMT practise. He currently serves on the management committee of the firm. He has advised on some of the largest technology and telecom acquisitions in the country. He also advises domestic and international corporations on a wide range of regulatory issues including in relation to privacy, map regulation, fintech, encryption, spectrum regulation, e-commerce, sharing economy, biotech, digital content and streaming media. He has been included in The Mint newspaper’s list of 25 People who Matter in Indian E-Commerce. Mr. Matthan has been involved in a number of policy initiatives including assisting the government in preparing the country’s privacy law as well as its Unique ID law. He is currently a member of the Reserve Bank of India’s Committee on Household Finance. Mr. Matthan is a frequent speaker and has a weekly column on issues at the intersection of law and technology.

Ms. Sabbah Haji

Director, Haji Public School, Dodam, J & K

Sabbah Haji, 35, is Director of Haji Public School, which she runs along with her family in a mountain village of Doda in Jammu and Kashmir. Sabbah moved to the village in 2010 after having grown up, schooled, colleged, and worked in various big cities all her life up to that point. She finds the move immeasurably satisfying and has realised that contact with the outside world on the internet is adequate. The school, kids and farm life take care of all the rest in terms of work and entertainment. Sabbah tweets incessantly as @imsabbah and runs the school’s FB and tumblr accounts from her phone in the village.

Ms. Eika Chaturvedi Banerjee

Corporate Mythologist, CEO- Future Learning

Ms. Banerjee is one of India’s leading women business leaders and a corporate mythologist. In her current role as the CEO, Future Learning, Eika leads one of India’s largest – Skilling, Employability & Livelihoods, Education and Corporate Capability Building organisations. Ms. Banerjee is an MBA from FMS-Delhi and holds various Diplomas/ Certificates in the area of Comparative Mythology, Ethics & Morality, Business & Lifestyle Coaching, Gender Policy & Governance and Behavioural Assessment. She has worked for over 17 years with Blue Chip companies in various Leadership roles as well as founded and created two entrepreneurial ventures. Eika is founder and curator of Aakhyaan, India’s First ever Annual Mythology festival, a knowledge platform that she has conceptualised with department of Sanskrit, University of Mumbai – to integrate the corporate world, academia and popular culture. She is also the creator and curator of Future Learning’s line of signature programs, Bodhi- The Awakening, which aim to explore and revisit ancient wisdom in its various aspects, making it relevant and applicable to modern-day context. Eika’s passion revolves around enabling and empowering enterprises, and evangelizing the power of personal efficiency and resonance. Eika derives her strength and energy from the Himalayas – Adventure Sports, Yoga, Trekking, & Mountain exploration. She believes in personal resonance & efficiency, and ‘Reaching Within’, to derive solutions & insights from ancient wisdom. As a Woman Leader, She aspires to energise, enrich & empower the unlimited potential of the Feminine. She has lived in Singapore & Sri Lanka, and now in India, with her husband, and two lovely teenage daughters.

Mr. Karthik Srinivasan

National Lead Social, Ogilvy & Mather

Mr. Srinivasan is a communications professional with over 17 years’ experience across client and agency environments, having led PR, digital and social media mandates for clients like Lenovo, IBM, ARM, Intel, Ford, General Motors, Blackberry among others. He currently heads the social media practise at Ogilvy & Mather India. An avid blogger, Karthik manages two music-related blogs http://www.itwofs.com and http://www.milliblog.com and a third one, on the intersection of PR, marketing and all things social+digital, http://www.beastoftraal.com.

Mr. Savio Mascarenhas

Group Art Director, Amar Chitra Katha

Mr. Mascarenhas has been involved in the world of comics for the past 22 years. A commerce graduate with a post-graduation in advertising and public relations he has worked in advertising as a copywriter for a couple of years. He started his stint as a freelance cartoonist for Tinkle comics in 1992 and joined as a full time staff artist in 1994. While at Tinkle he has co-created characters like: Mopes and Purr, the detective duo from Crawford market Mumbai, along with writer Reena Puri. Janoo and Wooly Woo, the good witch and the Shy dragon, along with Writer Vaneeta Vaid, Super Suppandi, a creation that exists only in the hyper imaginative mind of Suppandi, Adventures of Little Shambu, based on the childhood adventures of Shikari Shambu.He is also the artist for Shikari Shambu for the past 18 years, continuing from the legendary Mr Vasant Halbe who created the character in 1980 and illustrated it till 1998. Presently he is the Group Art Director at Amar Chitra Katha Pvt.Ltd. Here he handles Amar Chitra Katha, and Tinkle, the Fortnightly magazine for Kids.

Ms. Sonia Manchanda

Founding Partner, Spread Education and Consulting

Ms. Manchanda is a Design Strategist and Graphic Designer, with 20+ years’ experience, building creative organisations; training and leading interdisciplinary projects teams on massive transformational projects nationally and globally. Her work involves designing systems, creating sustainable brands and unique experiences besides building capability and capacity by designing learning systems. She is a Founding Partner at Spread Design + Learning. Where, her mission is to spread design as a way of thinking and doing things. From source, which involves children to leadership, which involves Presidents of International Organisations! She is a graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She is an appointed member of the India Design Council, is on the CII Design Council and is a Governing Council Member of Forge, an incubator in Coimbatore. She is also a trustee at Nrityagram, the only ‘dance village’ in the world. Her Open Innovation and Design Strategy Project Dream: in has been awarded as a global game changer by Metropolis Magazine, USA. In her spare time, she is a naturalist and an urban farmer, growing and cooking up yummy stuff in her farm where the Spread studio is also based.

Mr. Tirthankar Dash

Design Thinker, COO, Quantum 360°, Design Solutions Lab

Dash is a humanist & a design thinker. He works at the intersection point where human insights meets design. In a career that spans 20+ years, he has worked across geographies in a host of industries. His experience ranges across advertising, sales & marketing, brand management and innovations. Dash set up and heads Quantum360 – an human insights + design solutions lab that helps businesses build brands, products and services around powerful human insights In the last 10 years, he, along with his team, have played an pivotal role in the launch of many new brands, products and services across countries Dash spends his free time searching for answers to this one question – what makes life meaningful?

Mr. Vipul Redey

Head-School Enablement, Khan Academy

As the head of school enablement at Khan Academy, Mr. Redey’s fully leverage this versatile online learning tool. Prior to Khan Academy, he was managing Cisco’s IT training and certifications program, Global Discovery Schools’ (GDS) 11 schools and Pearson’s 20 schools and 25,000 students pan-India. As CXO at GDS and Director – Academics at Pearson Schools, he designed the daily classroom experience of thousands of students nationally. He is also a TED-Ed Innovative Educator, a TEDx speaker, and a Stanford University Graduate School of Education alumnus.

Mr. Prashant Mehrishi

CEO, iTeach

Mr. Mehrishi is the founder of iTeach Fellowship. Before incorporating this organisation, he pursued his Fellowship (May 2013- April 2015) with Teach for India, a NGO which work towards removing inequity in Education in India. He has an innate interest in the Ed. Space of India. This brought him into Teach for India. During this fellowship he had also piloted their entrepreneurial idea through a Be The Change Project in the name and style of “iTeach”. He is trying to create an Eco-system which provides teachers professional development opportunities, coupled with world-class rewards & recognition. Mr. Mehrishi holds an advanced diploma in Software Engineering (equivalent to a degree from NIIT) and a certification in Effective Personal Productivity from LMI, Texas. He had a work experience of more than 15 years in which his last assignment before joining TFI was with Birla Sunlife Insurance where he worked for 9 years and prior to that he had a 6 years working experience in the IT sector. Additionally, he is also a founder member of TFI Pune Entrepreneurship Club.

Mr. Anil Kher

Mr. Anil Kher a Chemical Engineer (1977) from BHU-IT, is the Managing Director of Micro Interconnexion Private Ltd, a company manufacturing high tech ‘Gold plated PCBs’ for leading global players in sectors such as –Watches, Automotive, Defense etc. Mr Kher is a member of Board of Technical Education, Goa, ex-member of Board of Governors of NIT, Goa, and a member of CII Primary Education Council. As a Past Chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry Goa Council, he has also completed a 4 year project in rural Government Primary Schools in Goa.